chat with Deepa Srinath and Deepti Mittal

Write up by : Deepa Srinath and Deepti Mittal

Introducing Deepa Srinath:

Gauri: Our guest today is Deepa Srinath. Bhartanatyam is her passion and her first Love. She started learning under her Guru Smt Radha Sridhar who is in Bangalore, India, when she was 5 years old. She continued to learn under her and she still does. She has performed on several platforms and prestigious dance festivals throughout India and has toured countries like France, UK, Hungary, Dubai and Abu Dhabi. She has received kind appreciation and acknowledgements through different titles and awards over the years. This has kept motivated her to produce many different dance productions as well.

Gauri: Can you tell us something about your dance school and the event that is coming up?

Deepa: Yes, I started to run a dance school soon after I moved to the Boston area. It has been 3.5 years now. My students and I have performed in many opportunities, small and big. Under the school banner we have produced a new dance feature called the Journey of Bharatanatyam, which we premiered last year in Cambridge, MA. As part of the ritual, all the students of the school perform annually. This year the event is called “Rasa Vaibhava”.  This is a dance festival. Apart from the school students performing we have, two guest dancers coming in.

Rasa Vaibhava meaning: Rasa means emotions that are evoked in the minds of the audience while watching a performance. This is very hard to achieve for a dancer to strike a cord in the minds of the audience.  With experienced and budding artists performing we would like to celebrate the joy that we can bring to the people.

Gauri: Who is performing for the event?

Deepa: Gauri, as I said earlier, the young students are the budding artists who are practicing so hard and will be performing that evening. They will be the torchbearers and will be representing Vaibhava Dance School.  Also performing are Amudha Panizhsamy, Student of Smt Ranjini Saigal and she is also the great grand daughter of the legendary Bharatanatyam dancer Bala Saraswathi. She is performing a short dance ballet called Savitri and the other dancer is Sonali Skandan, who is the artistic Director of Jiva Performing Arts, an organization fostering Indian Classical music and dance, as well as Sonali Skandan & Jiva Dance, a critically acclaimed dance company presenting exciting and compelling works based on the Bharatanatyam idiom. She is coming down from NYC.

Gauri: How do you think the idea of a dance festival idea occurred to you and why do you think there is a necessity for a Dance Festival in New England Area?

Deepa: Back in India, there are always some or the other dance festivals going on round the year. I grew up watching many many dance programs and I feel it truly shaped my learning abilities through watching. I took my teacher Radha Sridhar as my inspiration who runs a dance festival on National Level called Rasa Sanje. Many great performers have danced under the banner. As the students of her school, we used to look forward annually to see great dancers dance. It was a treat for us. It helps not only her students but also attracts many connoisseurs of art. It’s been 40+ years now and she still continues.

When I moved to Boston, I used to miss such dance festivals. Of course, there are big organizations here who bring in dancers from India but it is only two or three at best each year. There are dance programs run by each school that perform annually but nothing like a dance festival where you give a platform for a young artist and also a treat to watch an experienced artist. I wanted my students to have the same experience as I did; The experience of watching other dancers and grooming themselves to become better dancers.

I hope to continue in a much bigger way year by year with the support of the New England area people. I would also like to bring in a variety of Indian classical dance forms and provide a platform for the performers and connoisseurs alike. As your tag line says SPREADING INSPIRATION, I want to exactly do the same thing.

This year, we also have my college friend Deepti Mittal to be part of the event. She is an artist too. She is a talented person and I will let her speak about her interests and how she is amazingly following her interests in new ways.

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Gauri:    Please share information on Madhubani Painting and its origins

     Deepti: Madhubani Painting also known as Mithila Painting is an ancient Indian Folk Art from Bihar. It finds its origins in mythology and it’s said that during the Ram-Sita Swamvar, the women-folk decorated the walls and floors of King Janak’s palace doing this painting. Ever since then, it has been passed down through generations and even today, women practice this art in their courtyards and walls of homes before festivals and celebrations.

2   Gauri:  When did you identify your passion for painting and how has your   journey been so far?

Deepti: I was introduced to Madhubani Painting at the age of seven when my mom started an institute to empower women artists in the area. Ever since then, practicing this form of art has been a parallel routine for me.  I started with making greeting cards for Birthdays and Anniversaries and went on to paint sarees and suits as gifts for family and friends. Even after MBA and during my corporate life, I couldn’t keep the creative energy inside me dormant for very long and decided to get back to doing what I like doing the best which is playing with colors on a blank canvas.The vibrant, rustic patterns of this style have always thrilled me and I take creative liberty in tweaking its styles keeping its essence intact.

3   Gauri: You represented Madhubani art - an age old art in a very trendy fashion, how did the idea spark.

Deepti: Since I have been practicing this art for 20 years now, it got a little mundane to paint the same types of motifs in every next project. Probably this is why; I started experimenting and have created my own genres which I call ‘Modern Madhubani’ and ‘Folk Fusion’.  Where ‘Modern Madhubani’ is a blend of the abstraction of ‘Modern Art’ with the precision of ‘Madhubani Painting’, ‘Folk Fusion’ is a combination of different types of folk arts together in one art piece.I also paint on unconventional home-décor items and accessories. My latest popular line of art is hand-painted shoes which is getting quite popular around the globe. Most of my art pieces could be found on my page www.facebook.com/deeptidesigns

  

     Gauri: What are the tools and mediums you have used so far for your paintings.

     Deepti: Brush is the primary tool that I use for all my paintings. Even though line-work (kachani) dominates in this art, free-hand usage of brush creates its beautiful imperfections. Other than brush, there is a special type of nib that is available in India (mostly in Bihar) which a lot of artists use for painting on fabric.

    I have practiced this art in every possible medium such as oil, enamel, water color, acrylic, etc and have extensively painted on walls, floors, clay pots, fabrics, canvases and now on leather, wood, cardboard, etc. Owing to its versatility, acrylic remains my favorite medium.